About Dorien

Dorien has been a practising calligrapher/letterer/crafter and teacher for over 45 years.

The interest was kindled by a commission from a biodynamic farm ‘Noorderhoeve’ in the north of the Netherlands. Dorien was trained as a teacher at a creative teachers training college in Alkmaar, where one of the lessons was ‘writing’ which included blackboard writing, italic writing, creative writing and calligraphy.

After 10 years teaching calligraphy and art at Coleg Elidyr, Camphill Wales, Dorien set up a business with a partner in Northumberland in 1993. It all started off with writing menus for restaurants, flyers for cafés, designing business cards, creating wedding invitations, producing exhibition posters, plus more.

There was clearly a gap in the market in the early 90s… before we all purchased our own laptop, desktop, mobile, iPad, printer.

Soon after starting the Art & Design business, Dorien was asked to transform the five rooms of the Chain Bridge Honey Farm Visitor Centre into a visual hive of busy lettering.
In between raising her family, managing a Museum, running her craft shop ‘Petal ‘n Paper’, and teaching successful workshops, her positive attitude of “You want something done, ask a busy woman”, came to the fore.

The photos of some of her work included on this website will give you an impression or perhaps, a lift of the curtain of assignments and commissions satisfactorily accomplished for happy customers.

Currently Dorien designs the occasional tattoo, she ink-colours that singled out poem that inspires her, binds a fabric booklet, or combines music with lettering for Instagram and Facebook. May this website give you some inspiration to ‘have a go’.